George Lucas Says 'Indy 4' Script Includes Henry Jones

After much speculation, George Lucasconfirmed on Thursday that Indy's father does indeed play a role in the script for the Fourth Installment of the Indiana Jones Adventure. (I continue to hope that this will be the actual title of the film). Sean Connery memorably portrayed Henry Jones in 1989's Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, but has not yet signed on for the new flick. "We have a script with him in it," says Lucas. "If he doesn't do it, we'll do a quick rewrite." In true dork fashion, let me just heavily over-analyze that brief statement. For starters, I don't like how Lucas brushes Connery off like he's not a big deal. Connery's presence would not only give ticket sales a boost, but would be a real treat for the series' millions of fans. And secondly, since Lucas says Connery not signing would only require "a quick rewrite," I think it's safe to say that Henry Jones does not play a huge part in Indy 4. Maybe they kill him off in the opening scenes, Indy wants revenge, something like that? Just spitballing here.

The interview took place at the San Francisco Film Festival, where Lucas received the Irving "Bud" Levin award, commemorating the fest's fiftieth anniversary. Lucas houses his Industrial Light and Magic and Lucasfilm facilities in San Francisco. Receiving the award, Lucas said "I'm out of the mainstream. I can do things that are not considered to be too logical or too smart. But those are the things that pay off." Is anyone else a little irritated by Lucas' insistence that he's some maverick filmmaker, going against the Hollywood norms? This has been going on since the seventies. The guy makes huge-budget blockbusters, he's not Todd Solondz for crying out loud. Anyhoo, here's hoping they get Sean Connery on board. The dude missed out on what could have been over $400 million bucks passing on the Lord of the Rings films, I doubt he'll refuse another sure-to-be massive payday. Assuming Shia LaBeouf is actually playing Indy's son, the "Three generations of adventure!" premise could really make the new Indiana Jones outing fly.